


A Fine Hand

by werpiper



Series: in the icing: Layers side stories [3]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Economics, Gen, Hands, Libraries, Massage, Symbol Dictionaries, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3603021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A librarian in Rivendell accepts Dwalin's offer to contribute a dictionary of Dwarvish symbols.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fine Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [braidedribbon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/braidedribbon/gifts).



> written for an ask from braidedribbon on tumblr!

Istehir stood back and watched the Dwarf write. From the looks of it, literacy was the last thing the librarian had expected — a low bulking creature like a boulder, with bristly hair that started halfway down its head and probably never stopped. It — Istehir presumed, then hesitated, thinking of certain texts, and revised his notion to “he” — spoke Westron with a voice like boulders grinding together. But the words had been fair enough: he offered to contribute a dictionary of Dwarvish symbols to Rivendell’s library, and that was a rare gift indeed. 

The Dwarf wrote with his eyebrows beetled together and the quill disappearing in his great square paw, but his writing was also fair. The symbols were deftly done, annotated into component parts, and glossed into Westron in its own alphabet. He worked quickly, steadily, and tirelessly; clearly an organized mind. Istehir nearly envied him; his own attention wandered so easily when he wrote, and his own scholarship had grown over more years than this mortal could possibly have had. 

When it was time to eat, Istehir whispered to an assistant about a folio entitled “Ways of the Stunted-folk”, and covered trays arrived loaded with bread and honey, meat and mushrooms. The Dwarf covered his work tidily, and ate with the same singleminded precision with which he wrote, though his startlingly sky-blue eyes — beautiful enough for an Elvish face, thought Istehir with surprise — wandered up and down the shelves, assessed the furniture, and travelled out through the wide-open windows. He turned back to his writing as soon as the plates were completely clean.

The Dwarf's hand cramped suddenly — fortunately he was framing a page at that moment, with no ink on the quill — and Istehir realized he had been writing for nearly ten hours straight. Few elves could sit still for that long; Istehir was shocked to discover he himself had been watching this guest the entire time. He moved in quickly, as the Dwarvish face turned wry — how expressive it was, despite all the hair; how could Istehir have imagined otherwise, when even a horse’s face can show its mind so clearly? And it was bold of him to ask, though it could be taken as a kindness only to the cramp: would Master Dwalin (he hoped he had that right) allow him to clear the cramp, with the cream the library kept for overworked scribes?

Dwalin’s face went blanker than a horse’s for a moment, then the smallest wryness returned, and he nodded. Istehir sat down beside him, and picked up that hard-worked hand — as broad across as both of his own, and substantially more weight. Inked patterns were etched into it, and scars, and soft black fur wisped across the back. As Istehir gripped and stroked the blunt fingers, the Dwarf’s head leaned back against a cushion; his eyes half-closed and his mouth a little open, and a tiny patch of pale bare skin came visible on the throat behind his beard. Istehir’s own mouth opened in response, but he found no words to say, and made himself close it again. He’d clearly worked the Dwarf enough; he needed some fresh air himself. At first he’d thought to offer some metal or gem as a gift-in-kind for such obscure knowledge; the Stunted Folk were said to love those things. But in the moment, the ink in the Dwarf’s skin still holding his eyes, he could only hold out the jar of rubbing cream. The Dwarf rolled one great shoulder till it cracked, and his face crinkled into a smile of such warm knowledge that Istehir blushed. The gift was made with some appropriate words, and the librarian fled to the window as the Dwarf’s heavy boots left the hall.

If later that night he rubbed his own hands and shoulders, or pressed an inked quill against his own skin to see the stain — well. An elf’s life might be as long as the world was long, and wasn’t the world wide and wonderful, and full of so many curiosities…. A lord of learning could never learn enough, however hard a mortal hand might labor on a long summer’s day. But he could open that page again in years to come, and smell the warm-stone scent of a Dwarf behind the piney scent of cream, and remember the touch of a broad strong hand, as long as learning could live.

**Author's Note:**

> That stuff will be all kinds of useful. Good trade, Dwalin!


End file.
